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What a joy it is to see really professional media manipulation.

William Safire

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William Safire
Age: 79 †
Born: 1929
Born: December 17
Died: 2009
Died: September 27
Author
Columnist
Journalist
Writer
New York City
New York
William Lewis Safire
Really
Manipulation
Professional
Joy
Media

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Sir Alec Douglas-Home, when he was British Foreign Secretary, said he received the following telegram from an irate citizen: To hell with you. Offensive letter follows.
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If America cannot win a war in a week, it begins negotiating with itself.
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In dealing with Syria's dictator...only force counts. No cease-fire was attainable in Lebanon until the 16-inch guns of the battleship New Jersey started shelling Syria's proxies suddenly, sweet reason prevailed in Damascus.
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The wonderful thing about being a New York Times columnist is that it's like a Supreme Court appointment - they're stuck with you for a long time.
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The first ladyship is the only federal office in which the holder can neither be fired nor impeached.
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I welcome new words, or old words used in new ways, provided the result is more precision, added color or greater expressiveness.
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Adapt your style, if you wish, to admit the color of slang or freshness of neologism, but hang tough on clarity, precision, structure, grace.
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Writers who used to show off their erudition no longer sing in the bare ruined choir of the media.
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Never put the story in the lead. Let 'em have a hot shot of ambiguity right between the eyes.
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I'm a right-wing pundit and have been for many years.
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The remarkable legion of the unremarked, whose individual opinions are not colorful or different enough to make news, but whose collective opinion, when crystallized, can make history.
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When duty calls, that is when character counts.
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This is what it's all about. From what I could see, you could get a bunch of people together, whip up the press and have some impact.
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Cast aside any column about two subjects. It means the pundit chickened out on the hard decision about what to write about that day.
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The trick is to start early in our careers the stress-relieving avocation that we will need later as a mind-exercising final vocation. We can quit a job, but we quit fresh involvement at our mental peril.
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Do not be taken in by 'insiderisms.' Fledgling columnists, eager to impress readers with their grasp of journalistic jargon, are drawn to such arcane spellings as 'lede.' Where they lede, do not follow.
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A reader ought to be able to hold it and become familiar with its organized contents and make it a mind's manageable companion.
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President Reagan is a rhetorical roundheels, as befits a politician seeking empathy with his audience.
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No one flower can ever symbolize this nation. America is a bouquet.
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You don't want lopsided government. You don't want one side running roughshod over the other.
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